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on Social Norms and Social Capital |
| By: | Luigi Guiso; Paola Sapienza; Luigi Zingales |
| Abstract: | To explain the extremely long-term persistence (more than 500 years) of positive historical experiences of cooperation (Putnam 1993), we model the intergenerational transmission of priors about the trustworthiness of others. We show that this transmission tends to be biased toward excessively conservative priors. As a result, societies can be trapped in a low-trust equilibrium. In this context, a temporary shock to the return to trusting can have a permanent effect on the level of trust. We validate the model by testing its predictions on the World Values Survey data and the German Socio Economic Panel. We also present some anecdotal evidence that differences in priors across regions are reflected in the spirit of the novels that originate from those regions. |
| JEL: | E0 |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13712&r=soc |
| By: | BECCHETTI LEONARDO; DEGLI ANTONI GIACOMO |
| Abstract: | We perform a standard trust game experiment in which questionnaires are alternatively administered to participants after the experiment and before even knowing the rules of the game. We find that self declared happiness is significantly affected by trustors’ contribution only when survey questions are answered after having played. This result contributes both to the empirical happiness and behavioural experimental literature. With respect to the first, we demonstrate that general questions on self declared life satisfaction evaluated over the entire life period are affected by most recent events. With respect to the second, we interpret our findings as supporting the existence of “warm glow” preferences. We think that our contribution has also important methodological consequences: warm glow preferences cannot just be tested with the standard approach inferring implied preference structures from players’ choices. Only when measuring ex post the effects on happiness of players’ contribution, net of the outcome of the game, we may conclude that their choice to contribute is due to altruistic and not to strategic motivations. Finally our finding is a confirmation of the importance of experience and not just procedural utility. In our experiment trustor happiness is not affected by the outcome of the game but by the specific pattern of chosen actions, irrespective of the final result. |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:rtv:ceiswp:263&r=soc |
| By: | Ruben Enikolopov (Harvard University); Maria Petrova (Harvard University); Ekaterina Zhuravskaya (New Economic School (NES), Center for Economic and Financial Research (CEFIR), Center for Economic Policy Research (CEPR)) |
| Abstract: | Governments control media in much of the developing world. Does this have an effect on political choices of voters? We address this question using exogenous variation in the availability of the signal of the only independent from the government national TV channel in Russia during the 1999 parliamentary elections. We find that the presence of an independent source of political news on TV significantly decreased the vote in favor of the government party and increased the vote in favor of the opposition parties. We find that the difference in TV coverage significantly changed voting behavior even controlling for voters’ inclinations just one month prior to the elections. The effects we find are larger than those found in established democracies. |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:cfr:cefirw:w0112&r=soc |
| By: | Strulik, Holger |
| Abstract: | Household poverty is a powerful motive for child labor and working frequently comes at the expense of schooling for children. Accounting for these natural links we investigate whether and when there is an additional role for community norms and how the social evaluation of schooling evolves over time. The proposed model provides an explanation for why equally poor villages or regions display different attitudes towards schooling and why children who are not working are not sent to school either but remain idle instead. The conditions for a successful implementation of a half-day school vs. a full-day school are investigated. An extension of the model explores how an education contingent subsidy paid to the poorest families of a community manages to initiate a bandwagon effect towards an equilibrium where all children are sent to school. |
| Keywords: | School Attendance, Child Labor, Social Norms, Targeted Transfers |
| JEL: | I20 I29 J13 O12 |
| Date: | 2008–01 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:han:dpaper:dp-383&r=soc |
| By: | C. Cordes |
| Abstract: | To explain emergent cultural phenomena, this paper argues, it is inevitable to understand the evolution of complex human cognitive adaptations and their links to the population-level dynamics of cultural variation. On the one hand, the process of cultural transmission is influenced and constrained by humans’ evolved psychology; people tend to acquire some cultural variants rather than others. On the other hand, the cultural environment provides cultural variants that are transmitted to or adopted by individuals via processes of social learning. To gain insights into this recursive relationship between individual cognitive dispositions at the micro level and cultural phenomena at the macro level, the theory of gene-culture coevolution is applied. Moreover, a model of cultural evolution demonstrates the dissemination of novelty within a population via biased social learning processes. As a result, some unique facets of human behavior and cumulative cultural evolution are identified. |
| Keywords: | Cultural Evolution, Social Learning, Diffusion Dynamics, Coevolution, Evolutionary Economics Length 22 pages |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:esi:evopap:2007-22&r=soc |
| By: | David Masclet Auray (CREM - CNRS - CIRANO); Thierry Pénard (CREM – CNRS - University of Rennes 1) |
| Abstract: | The eBay Feedback Forum is claimed to be a crucial component of the success of eBay. Many empirical studies have found that this feedback system exerts a deterrent effect on the opportunistic behavior the Internet's anonymity may incite buyers and sellers to adopt. The feedback system in place on eBay is however far from being perfect and may be especially vulnerable to strategic ratings (or nonratings) that might reduce the informational content of feedback profiles. This article aims to examine the efficiency of the eBay feedback system, through a set of experiments based on the trust game. Our experimental design consists of four different treatments. The baseline treatment corresponds to a finite repeated simultaneous trust game. The second treatment, called “eBay rating” is identical to the baseline treatment except that we added a second stage in which the players have the opportunity of rating their partner. In this treatment, each participant is given the choice to either evaluate immediately or wait, knowing that only one rating will be accepted. The third treatment, called "Sequential rating" is identical to the “eBay rating” treatment, except that the order in which players evaluate one another is randomly determined by the computer. Finally in the fourth treatment, called “Simultaneous rating”, both players are required to make their rating decisions simultaneously. Our experimental results indicate that the eBay feedback system could be improved by either constraining partners to leave ratings simultaneously or by predetermining the rating sequence. |
| JEL: | C92 C72 L14 L86 |
| Date: | 2008 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:tut:cremwp:200803&r=soc |
| By: | Ernesto Reuben; Paola Sapienza; Luigi Zingales |
| Abstract: | There is a large body of literature documenting both a preference for immediacy and a tendency to procrastinate. O'Donoghue and Rabin (1999a,b, 2001) and Choi et al. (2005) model these behaviors as the two faces of the same phenomenon. In this paper, we use a combination of lab, field, and survey evidence to study whether these two types of behavior are indeed linked. To measure immediacy we had subjects choose between a series of smaller-sooner and larger-later rewards. Both rewards were paid with a check in order to control for transaction costs. To measure procrastination we use the subjects' actual behavior in cashing the check and completing tasks on time. Our results lend support to the hypothesis that subjects who have a preference for immediacy are indeed more likely to procrastinate. |
| JEL: | D0 G0 |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:13713&r=soc |
| By: | Delia Furtado (University of Connecticut); Nikolaos Theodoropoulos (University of Cyprus) |
| Abstract: | This paper examines the effect of education on intermarriage and specifically, whether the mechanisms through which education affects intermarriage differ by immigrant generation and race. We consider three main paths through which education affects marriage choice. First, educated people may be better able to adapt to different customs and cultures making them more likely to marry outside of their ethnicity. Second, because the educated are less likely to reside in ethnic enclaves, meeting potential spouses of the same ethnicity may involve higher search costs. Lastly, if spouse-searchers value similarities in education as well as ethnicity, then they may be willing to substitute similarities in education for ethnicity when evaluating spouses. Thus, the effect of education will depend on the availability of same-ethnicity potential spouses with a similar level of education. Using U.S. Census data, we find evidence for all three effects for the population in general. However, assortative matching on education seems to be relatively more important for the native born, for the foreign born that arrived at a fairly young age, and for Asians. We conclude by providing additional pieces of evidence suggestive of our hypotheses. |
| Keywords: | Ethnic intermarriage, Education, Immigration |
| JEL: | J12 I21 J61 |
| Date: | 2007–12 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:crm:wpaper:0716&r=soc |